"Okay for Now" by Gary D. Schmidt

Mary Harris RussellSpecial to the Tribune

"Okay for Now"By Gary D. SchmidtClarion, $16.99, ages 10-14

Gary Schmidt's story of middle-school troubles takes place against the resonant background of 1968-1969. Another narrative element is startlingly less familiar: John James Audubon's "Birds of America." Doug Swieteck, a rising eighth-grader recently moved to a small town by his angry, often-fired father, knows nothing about Audubon. Yet, on seeing at the library "The Arctic Tern," Doug comments, "This bird was falling and there wasn't a single thing in the world that cared at all." In Schmidt's novel, we do learn to care about Doug, his peers and an unusually detailed group of adults. Schmidt - enlisting help from Audubon and even "Jane Eyre" - takes us where the best middle-grade fiction goes, to life-changing moments in a young person's life.